


and at once i knew, i was not magnificent.

by commonemergency



Series: ficmas 2017. [11]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2009 timeline, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-13 19:31:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12990978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commonemergency/pseuds/commonemergency
Summary: It doesn’t happen like in the movies, in fact, Phil doesn’t even realize that it was happening at all.prompt: before Phil meets Dan.





	and at once i knew, i was not magnificent.

Phil has friends. He has a lot of friends and they’re nice, and some of them are in his real life and some are online. Both are equally valid, but sometimes he misses having a connection with someone. Because there are people he knows that he’s close with but they have _their_ people. And Phil has... himself. That’s fine too -- for the most part. Except. 

Except sometimes, the loneliness is enough to swallow him whole. It doesn’t really get to him that much, not when he really thinks about it. He has things to look forward to, videos to make, people to collab with, but sometimes it doesn’t feel enough. When the days are long and hard and sometimes he’s talking to a void. Although he can’t seem to pin point what that void is or what’s in absence of. 

He spends a lot of days in his room or helping his mum in the garden. He’s finding a love for plants, they’re small and something he can take care of while he’s taking care of himself. His mum shows him how deep to dig a hole, and they pat the earth together and work on bedding the next baby plant to the garden. It’s days like this when Phil wishes he had a dog to play in the garden with, to have a little companion to enjoy what they’re creating together. _One day_ , he thinks, when he’s old and grown and has his own place, he’ll adopt all the dogs and maybe someday _someone_ will be in the picture, too. 

“You alright, love?” They’re sitting on the chairs in the back porch admiring the garden and the sunset with a cup of hot tea. It’s been a good day of fun with his mum, but he has a lot of things on his mind. He wants to go out but he doesn’t want to socialize with a lot of people, and he can go online and tweet something mildly interesting and have people reply but that’s too much effort too. What he really wants is to be able to watch a movie on the television with someone while he’s got an arm wrapped around them, and they’d laugh at the same things, and cry at the same things, and appreciate the score behind the work. 

“I’m alright. I’m a little tired.” He smiles at his mum, his eyes mesmerized by the swirl of the milk. He takes a sip and it’s a warm and comfortable feeling, it makes up for the cold earlier, but it’s not enough to kill the loneliness he feels on the inside. 

“You seem a little sad,” His mother reaches out to massage the back of his neck, her fingers running through the hair and he’ll never tell her how comforting it feels. He could remember when he was a kid whenever he was scared of something or felt nervous, his mum would reach her hand out for him to grab, as if holding his mum’s hand could take away all that anxiety that he had felt prior and it always worked. Now that he was an adult he wished it still worked that way. 

He just felt like he had no direction in his life, and his parents were kind and caring and waited patiently while he made his next move but he didn’t know where he was going and he knows that he can talk to them about it but he wanted to tell someone that wasn’t family, someone that understood what it was like.  


The blue and purple hues of the sunset were disappearing and it’d be completely dark soon. Phil gulped, feeling very vulnerable to his mother. “I feel... inadequate or like. I’m unloveable?” He didn’t know how to explain it. He knew he was loved by so many people but there was this consistent nagging that he felt on the inside, and it was such a strong voice and it wouldn’t go away. 

“I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense. It’s just something I’ve been feeling lately.” It didn’t help that all of his friends were coupling up and going out on dates, when he stayed at home and played board games with his family, and sometimes Martyn would bring his girlfriend around and it was nice but it didn’t help him feel less lonely. 

“That’s alright, you know. I was very lonely too, especially during school. I had a couple close friends but I didn’t really know how to talk to them.” His mother muses, she takes a sip of her tea and then adds, “I know it’s not easy making friends as an adult, but I think you’ve done fairly well, Phil.” She smiles at him and cups his face. 

Phil laughs when his mum pats his cheek and gets up, grabbing Phil’s cup and walking towards the screen door to head back inside. Tomorrow he’ll check his plant babies and hope they’ll grow healthy. 

When he goes to bed that night his mum knocks on his door, and opens it to see him on his laptop, he’s aimlessly scrolling through his twitter. 

“You will find your person someday, Phil. Goodnight.” 

She turns his light off for him and he knows that it’s early but he puts his laptop away and stares at the window hoping that his mum is true, because he’s tired of this feeling. As he falls asleep he imagines where his person is right now, wondering what they’re doing tonight, and if they’re happy with who they are and if they’re sure enough in themselves because Phil definitely isn’t, and if they’d bond over that- or bond over their music tastes, and if they’d like horror movies like he does. Maybe they’d only have a few things in common and their differences would make their relationship interesting; it was just fun to imagine. 

Imagine and hope that it would be someday soon. 

* 

It doesn’t happen like in the movies, in fact, Phil doesn’t even realize that it was happening at all. 

He first realizes it over dinner with his family. It had been a while since all of them had gone out for a nice meal that was just for them and wasn’t for any kind of reunion. It was a lovely night but Phil had kept getting distracted by his phone. He’d eat a couple of bites of his meal before he’d grab his phone from his pocket to look at the message and smile and reply to.  


It wasn’t until after his parents finished their meal and Phil was still working on his when his mother asked, “Who are you talking to?” When he looked up at her she was smiling. 

Phil didn’t know if he blushed or not, but he had pressed send on his last message. 

“His name is Dan.” 

Dan. With brown hair and brown eyes, who had the same likes and dislikes as Phil, and made him laugh, and kept him company during the long and hard nights when sometimes he didn’t feel enough. 

He didn’t know if it was love, but it felt like it.

**Author's Note:**

> comments/kudos appreciated! 
> 
> talk to me on tumblr/twitter: **@nihilismdan.**


End file.
